Chapter 4
He was ten when he Settled.
He’d been in meetings for hours, seated beside his father and the Masters as they went over the evening’s war plan.
The table was enormous, a glass monstrosity that had been shaped with magic to look like a true miniature version of the Expanse.
It even snowed, little flakes dancing down on the battlefield as the Watermage Master kept them alive.
“And what do you say, Arawn?” his father had asked, as he sat beside him. “How should our ground forces hold the line against the dark?”
Arawn was half asleep, watching the Masters move tokens about: black for raphons and darksoul riders and shadow wolves. White for the Sacred forces, and red for the nomages that marched on the snow.
“I...”
He swallowed, considering.
He’d never been asked his opinion before. His father had pretended, for ten years now, that Arawn didn’t even exist in these meetings. He was to watch and listen and learn, nothing more.
And now that his father’s eyes were upon him? Now that the Masters all watched him expectantly...
His heart gave an uneven thump.
He swallowed, but it felt like the sides of his throat were sticking to each other. Everything had gone utterly dry.
“Well, I suppose...”
You must be perfect.
You must not fail.
Gods, he needed a glass of water.
Focus, Arawn. Focus, before you seem like a fool.
War.
He knew war, and he knew this war in particular, because it was the subject of every lesson for his entire life. So, he rolled back his shoulders and remembered who he was: the Crown Prince of the north, chosen by the gods to rule.
He had just opened his mouth to spout his battle plan – split the forces into segments, attack from above and below, do something unpredictable because after so many years, surely the Acolyte expects what we’re to do? – when his father slammed his fist on the table.
A gasp left Arawn’s lips.
Even the snow stopped falling on the table.
To his right, Hux, the Windmage Master, shifted uneasily.
Failure, Arawn’s mind hissed. They’re all looking at you now, disappointed in your mistakes!
...but it was the king who everyone’s eyes went to. Not Arawn.
“Have you no thoughts in your head? Or have you no cares at all for the plight of your kingdom?”
His face was pale, his eyes exhausted. Strands of grey had begun to pepper his once-dark beard, and wrinkles softened the once-hard lines of his face. He spent so much of his magic each night on the battlefield, channeling the Five’s power.
To have both wind and fire?
It made Draybor nearly unstoppable. But it also made his clock run down faster with each passing day.
His face, his unavoidable deterioration, was a constant reminder that Arawn would someday take his place.
Arawn cleared his throat.
“I...my apologies, Fath—King,” he corrected himself. “I simply wanted to be certain with my answer. So that the very first time you asked for my input would not be my last.”
“There is no propriety in war,” the king growled, standing up from his chair so swiftly that Arawn flinched. “You hesitate, Crown Prince, and your army dies.”
A wave of his hand, a flutter of his lips as he requested more power...
And glittering blue flames erupted from his outspread hand. So hot, they melted the miniature Expanse, the tokens, every last piece upon the table, until there was nothing left.
He put the fire out with a crushing of his fist.
A cool wind circled, pushing the smoke away, and everything settled into silence.
Cold.
Empty.
Arawn didn’t even dare breathe as he watched the king settle back down in his chair.
“Get out of my sight, boy,” Draybor said. “Next time, if you are blessed enough to have another chance, you will speak when I ask you to speak. Without a moment’s notice.”
Arawn nodded. “Yes, King.”
And before he could stop himself, he stood. He bowed...then turned to leave the room.
He hadn’t even shut the door when he heard his father say, from behind him, “Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever be strong enough to lead.”
Arawn made it to the training room early, desperate to move his body.
To do something he was good at, because here there were no Masters, no king, no frowning queen. Here, it was just his hands and his feet and his heart pounding in time with the motions he’d practiced since he could walk.
Fighting was not a march. It was a dance...a place to be free.
Here, there was no pause in Arawn. There was no fear of messing up, no crushing weight of anyone’s eyes upon him, just waiting for him to fail.
And today, when he fought?
He won.
Every single time.
Younglings entered the training room and circled up by the enormous window-wall, the Expanse in view for all to see. It was designed that way, for younglings to have a constant glimpse of the battlefield they would someday march into. Or, if they were good enough, to soar above.
Every youngling joined the circle with shoulders rolled back, fists clenched, confidence in their gazes...for they were good at this, too. Fighting was all any Sacred had ever known.
But when they were met with Arawn? Today, their composure dipped. Their eyes widened, their hands shook, they asked for mercy...because he fought without a leash.
He fought with all the fury of a shadow wolf.
Every jab and kick and lunge was met with an opponent sent to the mat, finished.
Every youngling morphed before him, until they took on a different face...and it looked like his father’s.
His hits were stronger. His motions were swift. His breathing was far more even than it had ever been. He fought, and as he did, his mind emptied of all thoughts beyond one:
Win.
And he did.
Every time...he did.
It was halfway through the day when Arawn finally paused to take a break.
He had sweat in his eyes, and he realized his arms and legs were trembling.
Gods, he was exhausted from sparring, but something in him told him to keep going.
To pick up a training sword and move to the other side of the room.
There, he could unleash all the remaining fragments of hatred he even dared feel for his father.
He was not supposed to feel.
He was not supposed to do anything but honor and respect and obey.
He’d just chosen his sword, just went to join the circle on the other side of the room, when laughter made him pause.
Because it wasn’t joyful laughter.
No, it was the kind that made Arawn’s skin crawl...born from one youngling making fun of another. He’d heard it plenty of times before. Never for him, because no one would dare place a shred of disrespect towards their Crown Prince.
But Kinlear?
Arawn sighed.
They always whispered about Kinlear. About his mysterious illness – he was born with bad lungs, nothing to balk at, the Masters said – and about why he often limped about like something was truly wrong with him.
It was. But Arawn was forbidden to speak of it.
“He’s weak!” a boy said now, voice growing louder as Arawn approached. “Good as a nomage.”
“Careful,” said a dark-haired girl. Zey, who always looked at Arawn like she wanted to devour him. “He might curse you and make you limp.”
Snickering filled the circle, and Arawn pushed through it as they all fell silent.
And there he was.
Kinlear...back from another bout of illness, where they’d marked him into a days-long runic sleep.
He stood in the middle of the mat, a small Scribe’s training dagger in his hand.
He was dressed in white clothes, his dark hair a mess of curls and his eyes downcast, as that same boy who had always picked at Kinlear – Brutus, with oily black hair and a smile that always seemed to be more like a snarl – was following him.
“What kind of prince doesn’t know how to wield a Sacred sword?” Brutus snarled.
A spike of rage went through Arawn. “Stop,” he commanded.
But no sooner had the words left his lips...that he suddenly felt his insides lurch. It felt like he’d been stabbed. It felt like someone had taken a hot fire poker and thrust it through his ribs, until he bent over from the pain of it.
Gods, what was wrong with him?
His vision blurred as he dropped to a knee, no one the wiser of him from where he stood hunched over at the edge of the circle.
“That’s enough,” he heard Soraya’s voice, a youngling who’d always been a shadow to him and Kinlear. “Leave him alone, Brutus!”
It was Arawn’s job to protect his twin.
But...he couldn’t stand up.
He couldn’t even breathe past the pain that was now spreading through him from his chest to his fingertips. He could feel it in his veins, as if something hot and horrible was swimming through him, setting every inch of his body on fire.
In the background, he heard the sounds of a scuffle.
He heard Kinlear’s voice, then a yelp from Brutus as he went sprawling to the floor.
But Arawn couldn’t see.
Oh gods, he couldn’t see, because now the flames were in his eyes, and everything went red. Everything was burning, and he was going to die, he was going to—
“I claim you, Arawn Laroux,” said a voice. It was ancient and it was all-knowing and it was inside of his mind, his heart, his soul. He’d never heard anything like it.
It was a song. A melody.
He gasped through the pain, because...
Because that was the voice of a god. His god, claiming him.
Vivorr.
God of fire.
Arawn could have wept as the pain was swept away from him. As it all fizzled away, fading from his eyes and his chest until he inhaled one sweet, victorious breath.
And then his hand began to burn. All of that pain, all of that heat, had spread down to his palm, where his hand had curled into a tight fist. It felt like he had an ember cradled inside of it. It felt like that ember had turned to a blazing flame, and if he did not let it go...
If he did not unleash it...
It would devour him.
“You’re crazy!” Brutus’ voice broke through the pain.
Younglings were shouting, and Arawn forced himself to his feet so he could see, just in time...
His brother...kneeling upon Brutus’ chest.
Kinlear had a wooden dagger pressed hard against the boy’s throat. If it were real, it would have drawn blood. It would have killed Brutus where he laid, and yet the calm, carefully controlled rage in Kinlear’s eyes?
Arawn had never seen anything like it.
His fist tightened.
Unleash it, his mind screamed. Unleash it or it will devour you!
He did not hear his brother’s next words to Brutus.
He did not hear anything but the crackling hiss of his fire...his magic...
As he uncoiled his fist and let it all go.
A ball of fire erupted from his hand. He held back his scream as it tore itself away from him, all the heat leaving his body in a rush. It soared across the group, through the narrow gap between bodies, until it landed home with a whoosh.
Right against the dagger in Kinlear’s grip.
It clattered to the floor as Kinlear yelped and turned, dark curls in his eyes, to find Arawn standing there.
Arawn....
Who had finally found his magic.
Smoke still trailed from his fingertips, morphing the space between them. And every eye was on him now, but he was not afraid.
He stared right at his brother, still kneeling on top of Brutus, as something deep within him seemed to spark to life.
“We do not harm our own,” Arawn said.
There was heat in his voice, heat on his tongue. Everything tasted like smoke.
He glared at Brutus, fire in his gaze as the boy scrambled out from beneath Kinlear, and then it felt like it was just the two of them.
One prince who had Settled. And the other...who had not.
“We do not treat each other with violence,” Arawn continued. He sounded like a prince. No, his mind whispered. A king.
And it was Vivorr’s power that thrummed inside of him as he looked at Kinlear.
Vivorr’s heat that spurred him on, as he uttered words meant for his brother...because Kinlear had darkness inside of him. Arawn saw it, in the way he held that small, wooden blade. In the way Kinlear’s eyes had narrowed, and he knew, it if were real...
Kinlear would have killed Brutus.
So Arawn added, “We certainly don’t lower ourselves to the standards of the darksouls. We rise to glory and honor the Five.”
The room cheered, but he hardly heard it.
Instead, there was a new phrase thrumming in him and through him, one he felt like he’d been waiting for his entire life.
It burned itself into him, left a mark upon his heart as it settled right there in his chest, beside the steps he would someday have to take when he took his father’s place. Beside the power of his pillared god.
I am Arawn Laroux.
Crown Prince.
Future King.
Firemage.